Dilma determina fim da desapropriação de terras agrícolas para criação de reservas indígenas - Notícias Agrícolas. Measure on Amazon sugar cultivation gains in Brazil Congress. A bill that would allow increased sugar cultivation in the Amazon region has passed a key senate committee, in what activists decried as a major environmental setback. The measure, which still needs approval in the lower chamber of Brazil's Congress, authorizes sugar cultivation in deforested and savannah areas but not in untouched parts of the rainforest. Marina Silva, an environmental activist, former cabinet minister and 2010 presidential candidate, called the bill's passage on Tuesday "a grave environmental setback" that "authorizes further deforestation to plant sugar cane.
" Brazil is the world's leading producer of coffee, sugar cane, beef and orange juice, and is tied with the United States as the world's leading soy bean producer. Senators supporting the bill say the country needs to increase sugar cane production to meet to future demand for both sugar and sugar-cane based ethanol. This would also boost the impoverished Amazon region's economy, they argue. Senado aprova plantio de cana-de-açúcar em áreas de Cerrado e da Amazônia Legal - Agricultura | RuralBR. No-win situation for agricultural expansion in the Amazon.
The large-scale expansion of agriculture in the Amazon through deforestation will be a no-win scenario, according to a new study. Published today, 10 May, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, it shows that deforestation will not only reduce the capacity of the Amazon's natural carbon sink, but will also inflict climate feedbacks that will decrease the productivity of pasture and soybeans. The researchers used model simulations to assess how the agricultural yield of the Amazon would be affected under two different land-use scenarios: a business-as-usual scenario where recent deforestation trends continue and new protected areas are not created; and a governance scenario which assumes Brazilian environmental legislation is implemented.
They predict that by 2050, a decrease in precipitation caused by deforestation in the Amazon will reduce pasture productivity by 30 per cent in the governance scenario and by 34 per cent in the business-as-usual scenario. BrasilAgro flags buoyancy of Brazil land market. BrasilAgro flagged the buoyancy of Brazil's farmland market by selling off part of its holding for the equivalent of $6,000 an acre – more than four times the price it paid six years ago.
The farm operator, which controls 166,000 hectares of land, said it had achieved R$11.7m for selling off 394 hectares of its Araucaria cane operation in the central Brazilian state of Goias. The sale, to a neighbouring farmer, equates to nearly R$30,000 ($14,800) per hectare, well above the R$7,100 per hectare that the group paid for the site in 2007. It is also, at nearly $6,000 per acre, more expensive than cropland in most US states, including Ohio, Missouri and Nebraska, according to US Department of Agriculture data as of August last year which put the average at $3,550 per acre, although prices there have risen strongly in recent months. BrasilAgro in its books values the land sold at R$3.6m, comprising the acquisition price and an allowance for investment spending net of depreciation. Drought deepens Brazils north-south faming divide.
Farm operators and officials flagged a north-south divide in Brazil's farm fortunes which is seeing states in the once-fashionable Mapitoba region miss out on the strong yields being enjoyed by other area. Conab, the Brazilian crop bureau, in a report trimming its estimate for Brazilian soybean crop by 400,000 tonnes to 81.5m tonnes, flagged the "negative highlight" of the crops in the north east of the country. "In particular, the region of Matopiba," or Mapitoba – formed of the states of Maranhão, Piauí, Tocantins and Bahia, and indeed representing an acronym of their first two letters combined - had been "severely affected by drought", Conab said.
Soybean yields in Bahia were seen tumbling 27%, and in Piauí by 31%, in sharp contrast to the national average of a 10.9% increase, and making the states the country's least productive. 'Severe drought' Yield downgrade Sugar fortunes. Dams in the Amazon: The rights and wrongs of Belo Monte. Brasil, asalto a los derechos de los pueblos indígenas. En una nota publicada por la Conferencia Episcopal Brasileña, los prelados afirman que, "siendo de orden técnico, el asunto exige estudios antropológicos, etnohistóricos y cartográficos" Enviado por: ECOticias.com / Red / Agencias, 25/04/2013, 07:55 h | (128) veces leída Los obispos de Brasil se oponen a que se transfieran del poder ejecutivo al legislativo las competencias sobre la delimitación de las tierras de los pueblos indígenas y descendientes de esclavos tal y como recoge la Propuesta de Enmienda Constitucional que consideran "un asalto a los derechos de los pueblos indígenas".
En una nota publicada por la Conferencia Episcopal Brasileña, los prelados afirman que, "siendo de orden técnico, el asunto exige estudios antropológicos, etnohistóricos y cartográficos" y que "no conviene, por ello, que sea transferido para someterlo al legislativo". No es la primera vez que la Iglesia brasileña se posiciona sobre este tema. ECOticias.com – ep. Deep, permeable soils buffer impacts of crop fertilizer on Amazon streams.
The often damaging impacts of intensive agriculture on nearby streams, rivers, and their wildlife has been well documented in temperate zones, such as North America and Europe. Yet a new study in an important tropical zone -- the fast-changing southern Amazon, a region marked by widespread replacement of native forest by cattle ranches and more recently croplands -- suggests that at least some of those damaging impacts may be buffered by the very deep and highly permeable soils that characterize large areas of the expanding cropland. The study, led by Christopher Neill, director of the Ecosystems Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), is published this week in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. This entire journal issue is devoted to the consequences of massive land-use changes in Mato Grosso, Brazil, the Amazon's biggest and most dynamic agricultural frontier. However, this situation is in transition, he notes.
Brazil - The Nature Conservancy, Walmart Brazil, Marfrig Group and ranchers join forces. The Nature Conservancy, Walmart Brazil, Marfrig Group and ranchers join forces to promote sustainable cattle production in the Amazon region Value chain will work together to implement social and environmental best practices and improve beef tracking from the pasture to the supermarket Important organizations related to the meat production chain have joined forces to spread social and environmental best practices in cattle production activities in the Brazilian Amazon Region. The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a leading conservation organization, Marfrig Group, one of the world’s largest food producers, and Walmart Brazil, the world’s leading retailer, will provide technical resources to promote compliance with environmental legislation and expand responsible production among ranchers operating in the municipalities of São Félix do Xingu and Tucumã, located in southeastern Pará, a state in Brazil’s North Region.
Improvements from end to end 1) Support for ranchers 2) Monitoring production. Rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/368/1619.toc.pdf. Ecology, economy and management of an agroindustrial frontier landscape in the southeast Amazon. For development in Brazil, two crops are better than one. It's not just about agriculture. Growing two crops a year in the same field improves schools, helps advance public sanitation, raises median income, and creates jobs. New research finds that double cropping -- planting two crops in a field in the same year -- is associated with positive signs of economic development for rural Brazilians. The research focused the state of Mato Grosso, the epicenter of an agricultural revolution that has made Brazil one of the world's top producers of soybeans, corn, cotton, and other staple crops. That Brazil has become an agricultural powerhouse over the last decade or so is clear.
What has been less clear is who is reaping the economic rewards of that agricultural intensification -- average Brazilians or wealthy landowners and outside investors. Looking at agricultural and economic data from the last decade, VanWey found that in municípios (counties) where double cropping is common, GDP and median per capita income were both substantially higher. SUINO.COM - Ações não foram suficientes para estabilizar desmatamento em Mato Grosso.
Ações de combate ao desmatamento não foram suficientes para consolidar a redução dos índices nos últimos anos, em Mato Grosso. Entre 2009 e 2012 o desmate na Floresta Amazônica sofreu oscilações. O comportamento ficou aquém do esperado e traçado pelo Plano de Prevenção e Controle do Desmatamento e das Queimadas (PPCDQ-MT), que visa ainda promover a redução do desmatamento em até 80% até 2020. O resultado do plano, criado em 2009, foi divulgado nesta quinta-feira (18) pelo Instituto Centro de Vida (ICV) e mostra que o estado conseguiu reduzir o desmatamento na sua área de floresta amazônica, porém essa redução não está consolidada. Com menos de mil quilômetros quadrados em média entre 2010 e 2012, a taxa caiu cerca de 88% com relação ao período de referência (1996-2005) e ficou bem abaixo da meta colocada no Plano para período. Conforme ela, a meta vem sendo cumprida, mas falta mais empenho para consolidar a redução no desmatamento.
Conforme trecho do documento: Brazil urged to stop invading indigenous lands. A rights group accused Brazilian authorities Thursday of ignoring a deadline set by a federal judge to evict all invaders from the Amazon heartland of the threatened Awa tribe. London-based Survival International said the Awa, which it describes as "Earth's most threatened tribe," are "at extreme risk of extinction as the authorities have taken no action to stop illegal loggers and settlers from destroying their forest. " It noted that federal Judge Jirair Aram Meguerian ordered all the loggers and settlers removed from Awa lands in the eastern Amazon forests by the end of March.
"But the deadline has passed and not a single person has been evicted," said Survival, a leading advocate for tribal peoples' rights worldwide. Over 30 percent of one of the Awa's territories are said to have already been deforested. "Logging trucks laden with wood leave the area day and night and the Indians are scared to go into their forest to hunt. " Forest ecology: Splinters of the Amazon | Brazil Portal. Thomas E. Lovejoy, a member of the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute Advisory Board, has his work and legacy on the Amazon forest research featured in a four-page article in the latest edition of Nature magazine.
A leading biologist who pioneered the concept of biodiversity, Lovejoy has conducted in the past 34 years the largest and longest-running experiment in tropical ecology. The experiment aims at testing fundamental theories about the viability of small, disconnected ecosystems and takes place in what is called “Camp 41”. Also serving as the scientific ambassador and chief fund-raiser of the project, Camp 41 has had the visits of personalities such as Tom Cruise and Al Gore. Among the main results of the research are the findings that scientists were underestimating the impacts of fragmentation and that secondary – regrown – forests create wildlife corridors, being a possible solution to diminish the impacts of deforestation. Read the article… Like this: Like Loading... Brazil's indigenous protest to defend ancestral lands. Hundreds of indigenous people from across Brazil pressed Congress Tuesday to block a reform package meant to benefit farmers which they say threatens their way of life.
"We are against the invasion of our lands. We are the original inhabitants. The white man is bossing us around. We don't like it. "We demand that these bills be revoked. Last year, he sought to attract world attention to stop plans to evict his community in a land dispute with wealthy white ranchers. He also urged authorities to speed up demarcation of indigenous ancestral lands. Indigenous Guarani people, whose total population in Brazil is estimated at 46,000, have been trying to recover a small portion of their original territories but face violent resistance from wealthy ranchers as well as soybean and sugar cane plantation owners.
The violence is linked to land disputes in a country where one percent of the population controls 46 percent of the cultivated land. Brazil sugarcane farms could impact local climate. Conversion of large swaths of Brazilian land for sugar plantations will help the country meet its needs for producing cane-derived ethanol but it also could lead to important regional climate effects, according to a team of researchers from Arizona State University, Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution for Science. The team found that anticipated conversion to sugarcane plantations could lead to a 1C decrease in temperature during the growing season, to be followed by a 1C increase after harvest. "When averaged over the entire year, there appears to be little effect on temperature," said Matei Georgescu, an assistant professor in ASU's School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, a senior sustainability scientist in the Global Institute of Sustainability and lead author of the paper.
Countries worldwide are looking to cut their dependence on fossil fuels and bioethanol and other biofuels are attractive alternatives. Amazon faces renewed risk from cattle. More cows, fewer trees. Photo: Reuters Rising foreign demand for beef and soybeans will tempt Brazil to clear more of the Amazon rainforest, in a reversal of recent success in slowing forest losses, a study said on Thursday.
About 30 per cent of deforestation in Brazil in the decade to 2010 was due to farmers and ranchers seeking land to expand export production of beef and soybeans, against about 20 per cent in the 1990s, the report said. "Trade is emerging as a key driver of deforestation in Brazil," according to experts at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo (Cicero).
"This may indirectly contribute to loss of the forests that industrialized countries are seeking to protect through international agreements," they wrote in the journal Environmental Research Letters. Advertisement Exports of beef and soybeans accounted for 2.7 billion tonnes of carbon emissions caused by Brazil's deforestation in the decade to 2010, the report said. Reuters. Blood in the Amazon - Inside Story Americas.
Jose Claudio Ribeira and his wife Maria do Espirto Santo dedicated their lives to protecting the Amazon and developing a way to live sustainably off the land, but their campaign against loggers and ranchers made them prime targets. Their murder two years ago captured headlines around their world, but their story is far from unique. A report released last year by the environmental advocacy group Global Witness, found that between 2002 and 2011 more than 300 environment activists have been killed in Brazil, and it is very rare that anyone is held accountable. According to the report, Brazil has the highest rates of killings of environmental activists. They found that 711 activists were killed worldwide from 2002 to 2011 - and 365 of those murders happened in Brazil.
Another NGO, the Pastoral Land Commission , reported that 918 people were killed across Brazil's Amazon between 1985 and April 2011, but trials were only held in 27 of those cases. So, why do so many such murders go unnoticed? La deforestación en la Amazonía.
Conservation Refugees. Blog | Reduse.